Is Google a Natural Monopoly?

Is Google’s crawler a natural monopoly? A natural monopoly that exists due to the high fixed or start-up costs of conducting a business in a specific industry. Think about electricity firms, natural gas or water and sewer service. So is Google "like" those other examples?

Those of you with long memories (or simply old enough to remember) will recall that telecommunications itself was once deemed to be a natural monopoly. These days, telecom is viewed as an oligopoly, with a few providers possible, but not a "natural monopoly."

That does not mean it is easy to compete with the leaders of the telecom business, just that it is difficult.

And while some argue high fixed costs create an insurmountable barrier to competitors, that same argument was made about telecom competition as well. To be sure, it has not proven easy to avoid an oligopoly in the mass market telecom business. But telecom has proven not be a "natural monopoly."

Some focus on the function of web crawling to make the analogy. Additionally, content creators have financial incentives to restrict the number of web crawlers indexing their content, says the Knuckleheads Club, which has been researching the economics of web content indexing. 

Some argue Google needs to be regulated as essential facility.  Some might argue that applying the essential facilities doctrine successfully will be difficult. 

The reason, some argue, is that Google is not an essential facility any more than Walmart is an essential facility.